ChatGPT and Copilot: US Publishers File Next Lawsuit Over AI Training
US publishers sue Microsoft & OpenAI over AI training. Nearly 400 news portals accuse them of illegal content use for models like ChatGPT.
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In the US, publishers of almost 400 news portals from 33 states have filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI because their content was illegally used for AI training. This is according to the lawsuit, which was made public by Bloomberg Law. It states that almost 50 media companies, mainly owning independent newspapers, are participating in the lawsuit.
They accuse the two companies of having “systematically and secretly” searched the publishers' websites – including those behind a paywall – and stored the content on their own servers. This was done without permission. They are seeking damages and an end to the alleged copyright infringement.
“Systematic and intentional”
Overall, it is about the “systematic and willful theft of hundreds of thousands of copyrighted articles,” the lawsuit states. This content was used to train products like ChatGPT and Microsoft's Copilot, which have increased the market value of the companies by hundreds of billions of US dollars: “Not a cent of it has gone to the Publishers whose work made it possible.” There is no question that this was intentional. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told the British Parliament that it is “impossible to train today's leading AI models without using copyrighted materials.” Finally, the plaintiffs point out that the AI models can sometimes reproduce the content verbatim.
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The lawsuit, filed in New York (Case No. 1:26-cv-05320), is the latest attempt to legally clarify how the previous approach to AI training should be legally assessed. Just this spring, the online encyclopedia Encyclopaedia Britannica and its subsidiary Merriam-Webster filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in the US. Before that, The New York Times, among others, accused the company of unlawfully using the newspaper's articles for AI training. The parent company of PCMag and IGN, the media house Ziff Davis, also sued OpenAI for copyright infringement, as did several major Indian media outlets and a coalition of major Canadian media companies.
(mho)
